


To The Eternal City

by Daegaer



Series: Burning Rome [1]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: 1st Century CE, AU, Gen, Iceni rebellion, Magic, Mythology - Freeform, Revenge, Roman era, lost gods, psychic powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-09
Updated: 2006-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:57:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young German meets a Briton and a Hibernian, and finds himself caught up in revenge against the Roman Empire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Eternal City

 

 **_  
_ **

  
"Have you food?" Sesithacus dug the knife in a little more, lifting the fool's chin up by the point. "Food! Now!"

"I don't have any," the young man said, his Latin coming out with an accent as strong as Sesithacus' own, but not one he knew. "I didn't see why I should give it to a bandit, so I made sure to eat every crumb I had this morning."

"What?" Sesithacus said, puzzled. The man made no sense. He should be frightened, not so calm, inside and out. Unless -- Sesithacus turned in time to see a youth swing a club at his head. He staggered under the blow, and crumpled to the ground, everything going dark.

"Wait," his erstwhile captive said as the youth knelt to cut Sesithacus' throat. "He's the one we've come here to meet."

"He is?" the kneeling youth said in disgust, running a hand across his bleached hair. "He's not very good."

"He will be," the first man said casually, picking up his staff from the ground. He walked on, swinging the staff before him like a blind man, leaving them as if they were of no account. After a moment his friend blew a snort of irritation and picked Sesithacus up, dragging him down the path.

"At least you haven't eaten recently enough to be heavy," he muttered.

  


 

* * *

"You _do_ have food," Sesithacus said in longing, looking at the bread held just out of his reach.

"Yes. I was lying," his captor said. "How's your head?"

"It feels like someone tried to crack my skull," Sesithacus complained, shooting evil glares at his other captor. His face was scarred, his short-cropped hair was unevenly bleached and stiff with dirt, and he wasn't dressed like a Roman. Neither of them were, both wearing trousers and short tunics much like Sesithacus' own.

"If I'd wanted to break your head, trust me, your brains would be all over the road back there," the fair haired youth said, in a friendly tone. "I wanted to gut you. That's more fun."

"Hush," the taller, dark haired man said. "Introductions. I'm Caradog."

"You can call me Februus," his friend said.

"Right. But what's your name?" Sesithacus said, rubbing the aching spot gently.

"You don't want to know my name," Februus said cheerfully. "I'd have to feed you to the crows."

"You're right. I don't want to know it," Sesithacus said. He looked at the scars crossing the other's face and arms, and the ruin they made of one eye. His new friend was young, little more than a boy, but the scars were old. If Februus had been one of his own people he'd have wondered if he'd been hung on any ash trees in his past. "If we're getting to know each other, dare I hope you're not going to kill me?"

"If you behave yourself," Februus said. "What's your name?"

"Sesithacus," Sesithacus said. "Give me some bread, Caratacus. Please," he added seeing the look Februus was giving him.

"Caradog," the other man said. "Oh, never mind. The Romans can't say it either." He tossed the bread over and Sesithacus tore a handful off, stuffing it into his mouth before it could be taken away. It was almost fresh, though he wouldn't have cared if it had been as hard as wood. "How long have you been able to hear the thoughts of others, Sesithacus?"

Sesithacus choked, the bread gone to sawdust in his mouth. Februus pounded him on the back and handed him a battered leather cup filled with water. "What nonsense is this?" Sesithacus gasped when he could speak. "How could anyone hear another's thoughts?"

"I see things to come," Caratacus said. "Februus -- he sees what he sees. _You_ \-- you are either worth keeping alive because you can do something other men cannot, or you are just another incompetent bandit who thought a half-blind man made for easy pickings. Februus gets unhappy when he hasn't killed for a while -- do I make him happy or not?"

Sesithacus didn't need to think about it. "It began a couple of years ago," he said. "When I started growing towards manhood. I told myself I was going mad. I still think that, sometimes."

"You're not mad," Caratacus said. "None of us are."

"I'd rather be mad," Sesithacus said. "I wanted to work on my father's farm. I wanted to marry the girl I persuaded to go into the barn with me. I didn't want this. So I hid it as best I could and had people shake their heads over how difficult young men could be." He looked at the bread and began to eat again without appetite. "Then my younger sister started her bleeding, and the same fate came on her even harder than on me. The priests took her out into the forest."

"As a sacrifice or as a priestess?" Februus said.

Sesithacus shrugged. "I don't know. I stopped hearing her after a day. All I knew was that people looked at me and whispered, and that I'd be taken away too, soon enough. So I left." He finished the bread and, realising that his appetite had returned, looked hopefully at Caratacus. "Is there more?"

"You're a better beggar than a bandit," Caratacus smirked, handing a piece of dried meat over.

"I can hardly understand your accent," Sesithacus said, his mouth full again. "Do either of you speak German?"

Caratacus laughed. "No. We don't even speak the same language as each other. I'm from Britannia, he's from Hibernia."

"Ulaidh," Februus said, like it was supposed to mean something. His smile was dreamy and unsettling. "The sky was black with the crows at all the crossing places."

Sesithacus kept a wary eye on him. "I've never heard of any of those places," he said. "Is that where you're going?"

"No," Caratacus said. "The Romans have made sure there's no place for someone like me to go any more, and Februus doesn't want to go home. We're like you -- you are running from the gods, I've been freed from the gods, like it or not and Februus --"

"I just want to kill them," Februus said. "More meat?"

  


* * *

"What is it you want?" Sesithacus asked, five mornings later.

"At what point?" said Caratacus. "At this moment? From you? From the course of my life?"

"We've been wandering over this stretch of mountainside for a day and a half -- why don't we just go down into the valley? Look, there's a village, we could get more food!"

"Not yet," muttered Caratacus, striding away, sweeping his staff before him.

"He doesn't act like he's going blind," Sesithacus muttered. "A blind man shouldn't be running around on a mountainside."

"We have enough eyes between us," Februus said. He squinted at the distance Caratacus had put between them. "Still, we'd better catch up with him." He jogged off, leaving Sesithacus to stand alone in the mist.

"I should just leave you, you pair of fools," Sesithacus said viciously. "Maybe some farmer in that village is looking to hire a herdsman." He sighed and started after them. Februus wasn't anyone to make angry, he thought. And Caratacus had the food. And they were right, he _could_ hear what other people thought, and they didn't look at him with fear. That was better than the people he'd thought were his _friends._ Why couldn't his sister have kept her damn mouth shut? Then she wouldn't have been taken, and they could both just have lived normally. He came up to the others and tried to look over their shoulders.

"A cave?" he said. "Good, let's get out of this before it turns to rain."

Februus stepped aside and Sesithacus saw what they were looking at. A young boy lay sprawled at the mouth of the cave, his childish arms and legs stick-thin and dripping with moisture. He was wearing a kilt wrapped round his hips and a short shawl tied about his shoulders, both made of some strange, rough fabric, the sandals on his feet made of rope that seemed to be more of the same fabric. His face, still round with baby fat, was oddly-featured, the open and unseeing eyes slanted above high cheekbones.

"Is he dead?" Sesithacus asked.

"No," Caratacus said. "Ask him his name."

Sesithacus rolled his eyes, then prodded the boy with one foot. "Hey. Hey, you. What's your name?" There was no answer, so he dropped to one knee. "I asked your name." He paused, then repeated himself in German. The boy's eyes very slowly moved so they looked at him, but there was still no answer. "I don't think he understands," Sesithacus said. "Do you want to try your languages? I've never seen anyone who looks like this - where's he from?"

" _You_ ask," Caratacus said. "Take it from his thoughts."

Sesithacus scowled. It was bad enough when the minds of others whispered to him, but to seek out the thoughts of another was worse. He hadn't tried since the night he had wanted to see if his sweetheart meant it when she said she didn't care about the rumours. "Sesithacus," he said, poking himself on the chest. "Caratacus. Februus," he said pointing at the others in turn. "You?" He poked the boy's shoulder. Nothing. He repeated himself, and the boy blinked. A third time, and the whisper from the boy's mouth was echoed by the sound in his thoughts.

"Sanagi?" Sesithacus said hesitantly. "I think his name's Sanagi." The boy said it again, slowly, his eyes drifting closed. "Well, it's something like that, anyway," Sesithacus said. "What now?"

"Now we leave," Februus said, hefting the boy up as if he weighed nothing. "Before the monsters break through the barrier." He nodded at the back of the shallow cave, and carefully started back down the mountainside.

"What's he talking about? That's solid rock," Sesithacus said.

"He sees what he sees," Caratacus said, turning away.

Sesithacus gave the little cave a suspicious look before resignedly following, catching up with Caratacus in a couple of strides and taking his arm to help him along.

  


* * *

"Help me buy us a place for the night," Caratacus said in the village.

Sesithacus concentrated on their need to be warm and dry, how long it had taken to climb down to the valley floor, how harmless they were, how the gods would bless the farmer if he'd just help them. It rankled to do what Caratacus told him, just as it had rankled with he'd been told to tidy and replait his hair and wash the mud from his face so he'd look respectable for talking to the farmer. This task, however, was even worse than trying to seek out another's thoughts, the farmer's suspicion and worry for his family seeping into Sesithacus' head till he thought he'd scream. But then it just . . . worked. The farmer put down his scythe, and showed them to the barn. A few minutes later his son came in and wordlessly handed them bread and cheese, and a jug of still-warm milk. They sat back against the straw, feeling the cold drain from them. The boy huddled away from them, his knees drawn up to his chest with his arms wrapped round them.

"You should practice that," Caratacus said, dividing the food into four portions. "Next time, maybe he'd send us his daughter." He grinned at the others' laughter, and Sesithacus wondered at the difference in him when he smiled. He didn't look so old. It must be hard, Sesithacus thought, to know you'd be blind when you were still a young man.

"Do you hope to find a doctor?" he asked before he knew the words would come. "For your eyes, I mean."

Caratacus looked at him evenly. "What could be done? My sight worsens ever time I have a vision - and my visions get stronger and more frequent as my sight worsens. What doctor could help me?" He drank from the jug and passed it over. "If the Romans had left me anywhere to be trained my eyes would probably have been put out by now, so I wouldn't be distracted."

Sesithacus drank deeply and passed the jug on. "Well, you wouldn't have wanted that, would you?"

"If I could have had the power and standing --" Caratacus said, softly. He shrugged. "There's no point in speaking of it." His smile was less open, more of a weapon. "Not all of us run from gods, Sesithacus."

"Here," Februus said, passing the jug to the boy. "Sanagi?"

The boy looked up slowly, then reached out a thin and shaking arm. The jug dipped sharply as he took it, but then he seemed to adjust to its weight, and he tipped it up easily enough. He set it down fast, grimacing and wiping at his mouth in disgust. He turned the bread and cheese Februus handed him next over and over, nibbling at each and quickly handing the cheese back.

"I'll eat it if he doesn't want it," Sesithacus said quickly, sighing in annoyance as Caratacus divided it into three equal portions.

"Here," said Caratacus, handing some of his bread to Sanagi in exchange. The boy looked at him sidelong from his oddly-shaped, dark blue eyes, then took it, eating ravenously. "Find out if he's injured," Caratacus said.

"I can't understand this very well," Sesithacus said, then tried to hear the boy's thoughts. What he could hear of the words was nonsensical, what lay underneath was sadness and anger. "I don't think he's hurt," he said. "Hey, Sanagi. Yes, you. Are you all right?"

"What good will speaking so loudly do, if he cannot speak Latin?" Februus said. "Sanagi, sleep. Go on, sleep." He mimed putting his hands beneath his cheek and made loud whistling snores. The boy stared at him distrustfully, then curled up on his side, watching them all. When they made no move to come near him, his eyes closed and he lay quietly.

"What do you want him for?" Februus said softly.

"He's important," Caratacus said. "I saw him for the first time in a vision almost a year ago. We'll need him."

Sesithacus felt vaguely slighted. "You saw him a year ago? He's why you were in this area?"

Caratacus sat back comfortably, smoothing his cloak over the straw to shield himself from being scratched. "Don't sound so forlorn. I saw you before that."

Sesithacus pretended he didn't care one way or the other. "Now that you have us both - all three of us, I should say, seeing as you probably picked up Februus as well - what do you plan on doing with us?"

"Go to Rome," Caratacus said, putting his hands behind his head. He sounded self-satisfied and very certain as he added, "Men like us will do well in Rome."

"I've never been in a city," Sesithacus said.

"I have," Februus said, his tone making it clear what his opinion was. "I found Caratacus in one. It stank."

"Rome's bigger than any other city there is," Caratacus said. "So everyone says, anyway. Sesithacus, you need to find a way to stop hearing other people's thoughts."

"You told me I need to practice hearing them!" Sesithacus said in frustration.

"Do you want to hear ten thousand minds at the same time? Or more? Learn not to listen."

"Ten _thousand_ people?" Sesithacus said, appalled. "In one place?"

"Ten times that," Caratacus said, sitting up. "A hundred times that to hear the soldiers talk. You understand my concern." He reached over without looking, and squeezed Sesithacus' shoulder. "You will be able to do it. We will all do well enough."

"So you say," said Sesithacus. "Thousands of people, and all we have is me, a near-blind man, a madman and a child lost on a mountain for who knows what reason?"

"I'm not mad," said Februus mildly as the boy's eyes opened again.

"I was looking for my wife," Sanagi said in a Latin purer than any of the Roman merchants who had ever come to Sesithacus' village. "I was too late."

The others looked at him with surprise on the parts of Sesithacus and Februus, and satisfaction on that of Caratacus.

"Where is she?" asked Februus.

"Hell," the boy said. He turned his face away. "I had to stop her following me," he whispered. "I had to."

"Your wife?" Sesithacus laughed as Februus nodded with grim satisfaction. "You're not even old enough to have hair between your legs." He reached out and shook the boy's ankle. "Why didn't you say you spoke Latin?"

"Get your hands off me, fox," Sanagi said in an angry, high-pitched voice, jumping to his feet. "You will not speak to me with such disrespect. I am the father of islands, the raiser of mountains, the bringer of earthquakes. You are _nothing_." The air hung heavy and still around them all as he looked upon each of them with contempt. Then his eyes rolled up and he fell forward to be caught by Sesithacus. Februus and Caratacus exchanged triumphant glances.

"Wonderful," said Sesithacus, his arms full of the unconscious boy, "another madman."

  


* * *

They'd been walking for weeks. Everyone they now met had spoken Latin from birth, and thought of them as bumpkins and barbarians, no matter how polite the words that came from their mouths when the travellers bought food or lodgings. Sesithacus was very tired of it, and longed to go home. Every time he remembered he couldn't, his heart sank a little lower. Trying to hear the thoughts of others more clearly had worked all too well, and he could hardly bear to consider what he would hear in his family and friends' thoughts if he should turn up. Trying _not_ to listen was more difficult, as if the unwanted skill, once properly heeded, wished to make itself impossible to ignore ever again.

The others were quiet, worn out by the travel just as much as Sesithacus. Caratacus stumbled sometimes, and needed to take their arms in support, though when other people were near by he walked unaided and no one would know how bad his sight was. Sesithacus realised that he was exhausting himself in foreseeing small imperfections in the road out of pride, allowing himself relax only when they were alone. Februus was quiet, leaving them sometimes for half a day and coming back looking much happier and with fresh bloodstains on his clothes. They never asked where he had been. Sanagi was the quietest of them all, walking on without complaint. Sometimes Sesithacus caught him watching them with a half-contemptuous, half-amused tiny smile upon his childish features. His thoughts made no sense, being in the strange language Sesithacus had first heard in his head, but when he spoke it was always in his precise and cultivated Latin. The boy's uncanny nature had been made clear on the rainy, muddy day a farmer had not trusted their goodwill in begging shelter at his isolated home. The old legion-issue javelin he flung at them had stopped in midair as Sanagi held up a small, grimy and imperious hand, and had turned to bury itself in the farmer's chest. They'd rested for four days at the farm, letting Februus amuse himself with the farmer's family.

Now the roads they walked on were wide and there were always other people, walking, driving carts, herding animals. Sesithacus did his best not to hear them too clearly, the thought of Rome itself looming in his mind as a terrible, loud beast. He found he was becoming irritable and more than a little attracted by the images of death and mayhem that ran through Februus' thoughts. If it would make them be quiet, he thought fiercely, he'd happily slit the throats of all the other travellers they encountered. Especially when they pointed at him and laughed.

"What did they say?" he demanded after some soldiers passed, calling out something that he couldn't understand.

"They said you're all filthy Germans and the legions would go back and take your mothers before your eyes," Sanagi said, bored.

"We should dress like Romans," Caratacus said, frowning. "We'll need to buy or steal new clothes." He squinted at Sesithacus. "We'll need to do something about your hair too."

"What's wrong with it?" Sesithacus demanded.

"Do you see anyone else with red hair? Or with hair so long? You stand out."

"Easily solved," muttered Sesithacus, setting his knife to a long, red plait.

"Wait!" Februus said. "Cut it off in the city. Someone will buy it." As Sesithacus looked at him in confusion he shrugged. "I sold my hair to a Roman barber in Gaul. He said Roman ladies like bright coloured wigs."

"That's crazy," Sesithacus grumbled, but he put his knife away. Maybe he _could_ get money for it.

They breasted a hill and stopped, ignoring the curses of the travellers behind them who walked around them angrily. Sesithacus drew a horrified and impressed breath. The city lay before them, huge and sprawling, bigger than anything he could have ever imagined.

"I can't go down there," he said.

"Yes, you can," Caratacus said, the look in his eyes suggesting that whatever he was seeing it wasn't what lay in plain view. "We will all go there, and we will do very well for ourselves."

"No," Sesithacus said. "Let's go north again. Back into Gaul or up to Germania. We can take someone's farm, we can live well, I'll get you a woman, we don't need to go to Rome --"

"Listen to me," Caratacus said, his eyes suddenly seeing the here and now, and unervingly clearly at that, Sesithacus thought, as he whirled and seized Sesithacus by one plait. "We are going down there. We are going to spend time getting used to the city. You - and all of us - will practice until we have absolute control over the gifts the gods have burdened us with, and then we are going to offer our services to the highest of men who will accept them. And we will aim _high_ , do you hear me?"

"Why?" Sesithacus asked, trying to tug his hair free. The other two didn't care, he saw. He was the only one who cared. " _Why_ , Caratacus?"

"Because _there_ is where the future lies, the whole world will tell you that. And because of what the Romans do to people who think their city can be ignored or defied. I've seen what they do, Sesithacus, with my poor, mortal sight. You must have heard what they did in Germania."

"But we beat them," Sesithacus said, thinking of his grandfather's tales.

"We thought we'd beaten them too. I met Februus in _Londinium_ , Sesithacus, when we thought we'd sent the Romans packing. But we hadn't. And they slaughtered us, and cut down the _groves_ \--" he stopped. "I was supposed to go to be trained," he said softly. "You don't understand."

"You're a priest," Sesithacus said, stepping back, thinking of his sister.

"No," Caratacus said bitterly. "I'm not."

"You want revenge?" Sesithacus said. "You want four men - and if we're honest, at least two of us are still boys - to take revenge for you down _there_?"

"I'm no child," Februus said as Sanagi added dreamily,

"I have seen a thousand winters."

Caratacus laughed at them all. "Does revenge put food in our bellies?" he said. "Let them pay, let them _pay_ for the services of barbarians. We'll become rich and powerful at their expense, we'll eat every day - _good_ food. We'll have women, servants, wealth, and the Romans will be happy to lick the dirt from our feet."

Sesithacus smiled, suddenly bouyed up by Caratacus' change of mood. It didn't sound so bad, put like that.

"And then," Caratacus said sweetly, "we're going to burn the place down. It'll be beautiful, Sesithacus. You should hear the screams." He strolled down the road towards the city, whistling like a carefree boy. Februus grinned widely, clapped Sesithacus on the shoulder and ran after him, Sanagi following.

After another minute of silence, Sesithacus followed them, glad to see they had waited not far ahead. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go, anyway.


End file.
